SPARSHOLT College has won two awards at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

The college teamed up with Help for Heroes this year to create ‘The Force for Good Garden’ which has won both a gold medal and Best Discovery Exhibit award at the show.

The garden was designed and created by horticulture students working with military veterans to show the role horticulture plays in the recovery and support of injured armed forces personnel and their families.

The garden is divided up in to three areas ‘Surviving’, ‘Support’ and ‘Stability’ which represent the three stages that veterans go through while working through the Help for Heroes recovery programme, and uses a different soundtrack in each section to reflect the mental state of veterans - bombarding visitors with white noise in the disorientating Surviving section, to natural signs during the recovery process in Support, to finally playing an uplifting piece commissioned especially for Help for Heroes in Stability.

Sparsholt college have won eight gold medals, three silver-gilt medals, six silver medals and three bronze since 1998.

Lecturer Chris Bird said: “It is always an honour to exhibit at RHS Chelsea and this year feels particularly meaningful given the show’s theme of health, wellbeing and happiness and the powerful story it has enabled us to tell in collaboration with our partner Help for Heroes. Not only have our students won another gold medal at the world’s most famous flower show but they have had the privilege of working alongside military Veterans who have been inspiring, motivating and made an invaluable contribution to this year’s garden.”

Sparsholt student Lucy Phalp said: “Exhibiting at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I’ve never been to the show before and to be here for the first time with a double award winning stand is just fantastic.”

“Working with Help for Heroes Veterans on this project has been special because we’ve made such strong connections. Our conversations talking about how horticulture has helped us individually and learning from one another is ultimately what informed the message of our garden.”

Veterans Gill Parker and Rachel Willis said: “It’s gratifying to see that all our hard work on The Force for Good garden has been rewarded. It’s so humbling and very emotional to win not only Gold but also Best in Section. We are all so happy.”